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The epic conclusion of Discord's little saga! And, more or less, it goes off as one would expect. Discord mocks the ponies for failing, and reminds them of his riddle, prompting Twilight to go look for the Elements back at Ponyville, where they began. This is not made easy by the others, who are still suffering from the effects of Discord's spell, and continue to plunge into chaos as their colors get even more grayscale.
As they head back to Ponyville, we get to see the extent of Discord's shenanigans, and it becomes very clear exactly why he was an awful ruler. Everything is in complete chaos, and Discord's sense of humor is heavily based on ruining others' day. It's all pretty crazy to watch, and I get the impression that the animators were having a lot of fun making it all. I mean, how could you not with such ridiculousness?
Twilight gets back to her library, mostly intact but completely sick of her friends, and manages to find the Elements of Harmony in the book she read in episode one. Success! She forces them onto her anti-friends, appointing Spike as Rainbow Dash since she flew off to Cloudsdale earlier, and faces Discord!
...this goes about as well as expected. This is also probably a good time to mention that all of this part of the episode is hilarious, as the ponies anti-personalities play off of each other wonderfully, and Twilight gets funnier and more ridiculous every time she gets more frustrated. Which is all the time.
Twilight, realizing that her friendship is basically ruined, goes gray as well in a very sad scene. It's interesting to me how this one clashes with the ones in the last episode, as Discord isn't even there... I have to ask if the graying out would happen without Discord or not. I suppose this is as good a time as any for the fandom to make sense of all this!
Poor, friendless Twilight goes to get Spike and leave Ponyville (as Discord gets great pleasure from her pain). However, when she goes upstairs, she finds that Celestia has been sending back all of her friendship reports from season one, and she gets to reading them. In a great scene, she has flashbacks of the lessons she's learned and is reinspired to reunite her friends and stop Discord! And she gets her color back, which is always a good thing.
It's around this time that it becomes plainly evident that this duo of episodes was meant to be the finale of season one.
Twilight heads off to get her friends, and she turns them back to normal by using a memory spell to remind them of the hardships they've went through before. It's pretty great, but I can see why some people would call it a bit of a cop-out. After all, Twilight hasn't used such a spell before.
To them I say, "Deal with it, Twilight's the Element of Magic and she can do whatever spells she wants!"
With her friends mostly reunited, they still have the issue of Rainbow Dash. Cue awesome chase scene with the ponies working together to subdue Rainbow so Twilight can cast the memory spell and get her back to herself again. And it is an awesome scene, especially for Fluttershy.
So with her friends together, they go to take down Discord, and, after some shiny effects, succeed. Discord is still rather cocky, you see, and apparently doesn't notice that the ponies are back to normal. Or maybe he is underestimating the power of the Elements? I don't know. Honestly it's a bit anticlimactic.
Cue Star Wars-esque finale scene where Celestia congratulates the mane six and we fade to credits, where the usual credits theme is replaced by the music going on at the time. Again it becomes really obvious that this was supposed to be season one's finale.
Overall, it was definitely a good episode. Again it felt a little rushed, and I was a bit sad that the main topic of the episode was Twilight reigniting her friendship than defeating Discord. It was expected, but still a little sad, since Discord is amazing.
I really can't help but agree with any of the other fans and say that this duo could've worked much better as a movie. I'll assume that the team didn't have this opportunity, though, since when they were making this I doubt the brony phenomenon was at any more than its very first stages.
It's also a shame that the CMC intro to last episode was apparently mostly a throwaway scene. According to Celestia last episode, Discord's return actually wasn't the CMC's fault (well, entirely, at least), and since they didn't show up in this episode... that scene really didn't have much importance at all. Oh well, I suppose.
Finally, I'm totally bummed out that they didn't have Luna in the last scene along with Celestia. After how many times they mentioned her last episode, she just would've fit. But, alas, we'll have to wait a bit longer to see her... hopefully she's adequately awesome when she comes back.
So yeah, I might've had my hopes a little too high for this episode, but I still have to say it was very good. With this little ark finished, I have to give this episode, and the ark as a whole, a
7/10
Pros:
Discord continues to be amazing
Hilarious shenanigans with the backwards-personalities
Discord's chaos is amazing to watch
Cons:
Rather predictable
Discord takes back-seat
Still felt a little rushed, though not quite to the extent of episode one
Really should've been the finale to season one, but that didn't work out
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So there we have it, episode two! I'd like to say "see you next week" again, but unfortunately the series is apparently going to be taking a little break before really starting back up. Hopefully I can live without new ponies for a little while!
Oh, and as a point of reference, 7/10 is absolutely not a bad score. I would give the first Professor Layton game a 7/10 as well, and I love that game (and series) to death. I'm not running my scores quite to the hyperbole that certain game websites tend to!
~C.O
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